Something About
by Dreaming-Of-A-Nightmare
Summary: You pass that same redheaded hobo on the street and each time he looks you dead in the eye, and you shiver. You know him, but from where?.:.Drabble based on the numerous times in the director's cut that Dan saw Walter on the street. Can be a tad slashy.


**A/N: A little drabble whose exigency to be written came while re-watching the director's cut for the third time and then proceeding to listen to a certain Across The Universe song that goes by the lines of, "Something in the way [s]he moves... like no other lover~".**

**By the way: this is in second person POV, which I don't experiment with often enough, but do like very much because of how it sounds. **

**

* * *

**

There is something about the vertically challenged homeless man – standing in the gloom of New York with his pathetically-made sign foretelling the prophecy of the end of the world – which stirs a reaction in you, causing you to turn your head and look him in the face, directly into his eyes.

You notice with a sudden chill down your spine and jump of your heart into your throat that he stares right back as if he _knows _you. There is something about him – caught in the cloak of his unruly orange hair and blazing blue eyes as distant and cold as arctic ice – that makes you shudder, because you feel like you know him, too. And not solely because you've seen him around so often; no, it's more than that, but you don't want to think about it because you're afraid of what you might discover if you do.

Something about him…

The way the freckled man stands, the way he grips his sign through forest green fingerless gloves, the way he cocks his head slightly when you pass by, the way he glares at Laurie when she's with you on the streets…

It's all so familiar, and haunting, and it dawns on you that this sense of déjà vu is not misplaced whatsoever, because you _have _see that stance and have felt that glare before. You know those hands, and that characteristic tilting of the head; you know it, but it's placement eludes you.

And if you concentrate hard enough – really dig deep into your mind and for a hazy moment try to picture it – you can hear him mumble your name, tasting it on his tongue like he hardly utters it but knows it well.

Your name, spoken in a choppy rasp which curdles your blood.

"Daniel."

So you turn, thinking that you do hear your name (even though it isn't actually spoken, since Laurie doesn't pay it any heed) and you glance at the grungy prophet with his wooden sign, and you're clearly afraid because he's intimidating for his size and the homeless have always seemed so depressing to you, but he's different, and it's startling.

But yes, there, you can see it: a flicker of something in his cold eyes, something like recognition and loneliness and resentment. Recognition, because he _does_ know you, loneliness for multiple reasons, and resentment because _you quit on being Nite Owl II, fighting criminals, being partners… you quit on__** him.**_

Each of these pass in a fraction of a second, barely a millisecond, and then it's gone and the hobo's stare is blank and observing, and you're left with Laurie towing you away and telling you, "to ignore that guy, he's _bat-shit insane_."

But you can't get those eyes out of your mind.

Those numb, creeping, narrowed, toneless blue eyes. Eyes as blue and dim and mournful and chilling as sleeting rain in the dead of winter, reflecting nothing but holding everything.

You've never see them before, but they remind you of someone you know. Someone who's who personality has been transformed into such a lifeless, cruel thing, and yet something that's also as natural and inwardly weeping as sleet: a masked man by the title of Rorschach.

It's a bizarre thought, picturing this red-haired hobo as someone with similarities to the sociopath Rorschach, and yet, it makes a sort of twisted sense. It can be logical, albeit strained logic.

And when you're mistaken and think you hear your name, that emotionally-hollow, raspy tone is that of Rorschach; which means that your subconscious brain figured out this odd connection before the rest of you did.

As you walk away, you hope to God that you never see that man again; that poor, rugged man whom warns the population of New York City from day to day that 'the end is nigh'.

And as you walk away he watches your retreating back, still protecting you after all these years even when you don't ask for it, keeping an eye out in the literal sense, and you don't even notice. He _cares_ about you, with or without his true face over this flawed, freckled one, but you aren't aware of this at all. And you might never be.

Still, he can't help thinking as you go on your merry way with Miss Jupiter: **There is something about you, Daniel. Something that drives me to become a silent bodyguard, both for city and you. Something about your kindness. Smiles. Something about your hospitality. Tolerance. Something about way you look at me, as person and not freak or whoreson. Respect you, Daniel, if no one else.**

And you will never hear these words, but they are as true as the formula for quadratic equations; because yes, this man _is_ Rorschach's secret identity, and it's improbable but not impossible because it's _real,_ and there's something in your blissful ignorance (something akin to denial) that keeps you oblivious to the prospect.

It makes you a fool, Daniel Dreiburg, because you choose not to say at least one word to that filthy man on the street. – Didn't your mother ever tell you not to judge a book by it's cover, and by teaching so, never to judge a person based on their appearances?

Because maybe, _just maybe,_ he's waiting for you to **try.**


End file.
